Byron’s concerns were overwhelming. His creditors were hounding him, and his wife’s family were making his life hell. Even more painful and distressing for him were the vicious rumors that he had fathered a child with his beloved half-sister Augusta. This meant she could no longer visit him without further scandal.
Byron missed her calming and supportive influence and became unhappier and Quixotic in his moods and whims. Then, his estranged wife had publicly declared him as, “mad,” without the addition of, “bad and dangerous to know,” a less damning phrase that another lover had coined for him. As the pressure grew steadily and unbearably, so did Byron’s need to escape.
“I can stand this place no longer, Poli,” Byron said in weary despair during a consultation, where his foot was paining
